April 21, 2013

Since my first taste of a duck egg at a Farm Dinner several years ago, I’ve been searching for some to buy myself. But I had no luck up until this year’s Boulder Farmers’ Market opened. I didn’t get there early enough the first week, but I made sure to get there early enough to get some from Jodar Farms the second week!

Duck eggs are quite a bit larger than chicken eggs, as you can see from the picture below:

Duck Egg (left) v. Chicken Egg (right)

As a result, they are also higher in calories and fat, but are also quite a bit higher in cholesterol (nearly three times, in fact). So they are definitely something that I would limit in my diet (although I don’t really eat a lot of eggs anyhow, and rarely use more than one yolk per person in a serving). Nonetheless, I find duck eggs to be richer and more satisfying than chicken eggs, so definitely worth an occasional splurge!

Leeks, Green Garlic, Potatoes, Duck Egg

Once it came time to cook my first dish with duck eggs however, I found myself unusually nervous and hesitant. I realized that I hadn’t cooked eggs in any way other than scrambled or a badly formed omelet since…ever. My mom poached the eggs we had when I was younger in the handy poaching contraption, and we just didn’t do fried eggs. I did a bunch of reading on poaching, and was rather skeptical about the whole non-contraption poaching process. Dumping the egg into boiling water free-form? That sounded like a recipe for disaster. I ended up putting the egg in a ramekin and lowering it (in a rather ungainly manner) into a pot of boiling water. I had no clue how long to let it cook, so I just guess, and then pulled my slightly overdone, whites-sloppily-arrayed egg out of the water, and put it atop some caramelized leeks, green garlic, and potatoes.

Leeks, Green Garlic, and Potatoes with a Poached Duck Egg

Not bad tasting at all, but there was too much ‘stuff’ underneath the egg, so the taste of the egg really didn’t come through at all.

The next week I had planned to try poaching again, but reconsidered at the last moment and thought I’d try frying in a very small bit of butter in a non-stick pan. I did a small bit of reading, still didn’t really understand exactly what I was doing, but just went for it. I melted 1/2 Tbsp of butter in the pan over low heat, and then gently poured the egg from a small bowl into the pan. The white seemed to separate into two different levels (whatever that was about), one that cooked quickly, and one that cooked after I turned the heat up closer to medium.

Duck Egg, Sunny-Side Up (and Not Done Yet)

At that point (and we’re talking only a few minutes overall), the white seemed nice and done, but when I touched the yolk it was still cold. Okay, then – I’ll go for the hard-to-do-without-breaking-the-yolk over-easy egg! Oddly enough, I was able to flip it without breaking the yolk, let it cook another 30 seconds to a minute, and then took it out of the pan.

Duck Egg, Over-Easy

I decided to go with the simplest thing in order to really feature the egg, and just put it on top of toast. I was thrilled when I broke it open that the yolk was exactly as I like it – nice and runny (but warm). Now THAT’s the way to enjoy a duck egg!